Media release - 8 March 2018

Launching a Photo Contest on Rural Women & Sustainable Development

Today, UN Women, with the support of the Embassies of Australia and Canada to Viet Nam, is launching a Photo contest on Rural Women and Sustainable Development. The competition which is part of activities to commemorate the International Women’s Day 2018 aims to recognize rural women’s contribution to growth and prosperity of Viet Nam.

According to a report of Viet Nam General Statistics Office in 2015, women constitute a critical workforce in agricultural production, especially in rural areas where 63.4% of working women are in agriculture compared to 57.5% of working men. Rural women are contributing significantly to Viet Nam’s economic growth. However, rural women and girls are among the people most likely to be poor, to lack access to productive resources such as land, modern inputs, technology and financial services, education, health care and other social protection services, and to be hit hardest by climate change. On almost every measure of development, rural women, because of gender inequalities and discrimination, fare worse than rural men.

Photography in specific, can be a powerful tool to raise awareness and to trigger positive development in society. This contest gives a platform to Vietnamese society to picture the positive changes they want to see regarding empowering rural women.

The competition invites Vietnamese people from all ages, to recognize rural women’s contribution through photographs. Detailed information about prizes on the contest can be found hereunder

Preliminary round: UN Women Viet Nam will upload 40 photos on our Facebook Page. The participant with most likes on Facebook will be rewarded for People’s Choice Award.

Final round: Our Judging Panel will select 30 photos for all awards. Winners can receive prizes, certificates and their works will be exhibited.

Submission of entries

Contestants can submit their images through email: unwomen2010@gmail.com with the title “Rural & Sustainable Development Photo Contest” or send a CD/DVD (sealed in an envelope including the name of the photo contest) to UN Women Viet Nam– 304 Kim Ma Street, Ba Dinh District, Hanoi, Vietnam.

Each image must be included a detailed caption (no more than 100 words).

Each entrant can submit up to (15) images.

Name, date of birth, address, email and mobile phone number must be included.

Submission requirements:

All images which go to the final round and winners will be selected by the Judging Panel (UN Women Viet Nam, Ministry of Agriculture & Rural Development, Viet Nam Women’s Union, the Embassies of Australia and Canada to Viet Nam

The winning images will be selected based on the specific impact on the perception of society of rural women and sustainable development.

Each image submitted must be an original, unique, creative and unpublished work of the participant who must also be its copyright owner.

Black and white images are acceptable.

Images taken with digital camera, conventional films or mobile phones (scaned into digital format) are eligible. Submitted images should be in JPEG format, at least 200 dpi/inch, and 1-5 MB in size.

Digital manipulation that distorts the reality of the images will not be allowed. Only basic enhancements such as sharpening, contrast adjustment, or simple cropping will be allowed.

Permission to use the image of individuals pictured in the photographs must be included.

All images must be the original work of participants and do not infringe the copyright of third parties.

The finalists will not only receive prizes, certificates but their works will be also exhibited on 20 October 2018